Michigan

Letters: Here's what liberals think

AP FILE PHOTOIn this May 19, 2011 file photo, a state trooper stands by as demonstrators on both sides of the gay marriage issue gather outside the Minnesota House in St. Paul, Minn. Our letter writer explains that many liberals also think marriage should be between a man and a woman, but that gays should not be denied equal rights under the constitution.

I don't understand conservatives and I really don't understand tea party conservatives. They offer themselves as experts on liberals without any facts at all, except for those created on the Fox News extreme right who openly hate liberals.

On social issues, most liberals would like to separate church and state, unless the principles of the Sermon on the Mount were incorporated. Many liberals also believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, but that gays should not be denied equal rights under the constitution, and certainly should not be decided by right wing social engineers.

On fiscal issues, most liberals agree that spending more than we take in is not smart, but also believe that our war budget is larger than the rest of the entire world's and that wealthy individuals and multi-national corporations should pay their fair share. Liberals further think that turning the job of governing over to profit-minded corporations is a bad idea, based on the fact that their main concern is profit, not people, as evidenced by the takeover of the educational system by entities like Lockheed-Martin and Blackwater. Likewise, privatizing the educational system would put corporations in the position of choosing profits over children.

Conservatives like to believe that corporations pay taxes, but the effective tax rate for U.S. corporations is the lowest of all the industrial nations, due to the loopholes and tax breaks given to them by conservatives.

Liberals also like several aspects of big government that conservatives seem to hate. We like Social Security, it was all that kept my mother out of the poor farm. We like Medicare, so we don't have to sell our house if we get sick. We also don't trust big corporations and insurance companies to choose our good health over their CEO's bonus.

Likewise, we like good roads, bridges, trash pickup, emergency services in times of disaster and we like veteran's benefits, supplied by big government. Big government also saved both the banking and the automobile industry and the thousands of jobs that entailed. If the conservatives had their way and let them go bankrupt, we would be in a deep depression.

We agree President George Bush spent money we did not have on an unnecessary war in Iraq, that earned himself and his oil and defense buddies millions in no-bid contracts and then cut their taxes on top of it!

Most liberals don't think that political parties, tea or otherwise, should be supported by wealthy individuals and corporations that have their own agenda. Besides that, we believe that unions should be allowed to exist, so that their members can have a decent wage and benefits and be able to support both their families and the economy in general.

This liberal also doesn't understand why conservatives don't want to conserve anything. They do not appear to be conservationists as they want to destroy wilderness areas so oil, gas and timber industries can get even richer, with conservatives unwilling to take away the tax subsidies for big oil like Exxon who made $39 billion in profit and not only did not pay ANY taxes, they received a $150 million refund!

Lastly, I think that conservatives and tea partiers just like to whine and complain instead of doing something positive to add to the quality of life that we enjoy here. Maybe they should go to one of the many Third World right-wing dictatorships to try out the kind of life they seem to want.